It is time to come clean. We’re bigger fans of the Z Flip than the Z Fold when it comes to Samsung’s foldable smartphones. Some of this is down to nostalgia from flip phone days, but the main reason for our fondness of the smaller form factor foldable is simply that – its compactness.

Ever since Samsung was one of the first to market with its original Fold device, we have always been intrigued by the prospect of a foldable phone that was designed to get smaller, not larger.

This brings us to the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip6. A few iterations deep, the clamshell foldable seemingly received more attention from the South Korean manufacturer in terms of improvement over its predecessor compared to the Z Fold6.

In fact, we’d go so far as to say that the Galaxy Z Flip6 was the more impressive of the two, especially when you take the recommended pricing into consideration.

So was our initial impression accurate? We spent the past few weeks reviewing the Galaxy Z Flip6 to find out. Here is what we learned.

Keeping it solid

Starting on the design side of things, and to contradict what we were just saying, not much has changed in terms of aesthetics between this Z Flip and the previous iteration. That’s okay too, as it’s clear that Samsung is taking a refinement approach to the general design of its foldables, perfecting elements like the hinge, the flexible display, and materials used in order to get the hardware as down pat as possible.

The small improvements on this aspect of the device have indeed made a difference, as the Flip6 feels harder wearing and more robust than previous iterations. Not that predecessors felt flimsy, but there is a distinct mechanical feel to the opening mechanism on this device compared to past attempts, and that is something we quite like. It makes the Flip 6 feel like a piece of innovative technology instead of a toy.

The Blue colourway of our review unit is a nice addition to the mix of options that have been made available locally.

As for the flexible display, there is always some work to be done on this front. It yields vibrant visuals and does not have the stickiness of past models, but it is clear that this is still the most fragile part of the smartphone. Whether that can ever truly be addressed remains to be seen, as is the fact that the crease is still quite noticeable.

Again, there is only so much one can do on the front, and constant opening and closing will only intensify the crease over time, so it is simply one of those elements you have to learn to live with.

We will, however, say that the Flip 6’s crease is far less of an eyesore than the Fold 6 one, so that’s something.

The full specifications of the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 are as follows:

Power performer

We highlighted improvements previously and the internal specifications off the Galaxy Z Flip 6 is where you start to see them.

Samsung has ensured that the Flip 6 boasts the best components you can get on an Android flagship phone these days, with a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor found alongside 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage.

This mix yields a device that did not miss a step when we were reviewing it, handily keeping up with any processor-intensive operations and multitasking.

We try not to place too much value in benchmarking, as these often only tell half the story, but we felt it necessary to highlight how the performance of the Flip 6 compared to other flagship phones we have reviewed so far this year.

To that end, on GeekBench 6, the Flip 6 recorded the second highest scores we have recorded in 2024, only being beating by the Apple iPhone 15 Pro, with a single-core and multi-core score of 2 312 and 7 169 respectively.

This is even better than the Galaxy S24 Ultra that we reviewed at the beginning of the year, which has never been the case previously when comparing the Z Flip series to the top of the Galaxy S models.

The other big improvement that Samsung has made on the Z Flip 6 compared to last year’s model is on the camera side of things. To that end a larger 50MP wide-angle option is present, although it is not the primary photography option. Here you will need to manually switch to the 50MP higher-resolution option in order to get the maximum photography capabilities.

This is a little bit of a pain as we cannot see a way to set this as default, but when you do switch to the 50MP option, it yields superb images and video. Content looks highly nuanced and colours pop in a beautiful way. Added to this is solid performance in low light conditions to create an all-around scenario that is on par with the standard S24 in our view.

It is a notable step up in quality, and with phones feeling like they have less improvements given the iterative nature of the smartphone industry at large, the series of enhancements that Samsung have made feel significant.

Lastly we also need to talk a little bit about Galaxy AI, which we are still on the fence about. Samsung has adapted some UI elements to lean into the foldable design of the Flip6 for specific applications, but there is not the killer feature yet that makes Galaxy AI industry-leading just yet. Samsung may have been the first to market with on-device AI, but it has not made the most of that head start in our opinion.

Final verdict

At R25 999 (RRP), the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 is not a cheap or affordable foldable, but then again, are there any in South Africa? What we can say is that this model feels more impressive in terms of the improvements it has made generation-to-generation.

It is still an expensive piece of kit, but unlike past iterations which felt like they were playing second fiddle to the Fold option, this smartphone feels on par. Add to that its exceptional performance, great all-around camera, and far longer lasting battery, and Samsung has made the improvements where they count.

Where the Fold shone brightest when past foldable were being launched by Samsung, the Galaxy Z Flip 6 switches the narrative, and is our standout pick from the two new foldables.

FINAL SCORE: 9 OUT OF 10.